CAMAGUEY, Cuba (AP) – Hurricane Ike bore down on Cuba yesterday after roaring across low-lying islands, tearing apart houses, wiping out crops and worsening floods in Haiti that have already killed more than 300 people.

The first islands to bear Ike’s fury yesterday were the Turks and Caicos, which have little natural protection from storm surges of up to 18 feet (5.5 metres).

The British territory’s Premier Michael Misick said more than 80 per cent of the homes were damaged on two islands and people who didn’t take refuge in shelters were cowering in closets and under stairwells, “just holding on for life.”

“They got hit really, really bad,” Misick said. “A lot of people have lost their houses, and we will have to see what we can do to accommodate them.”

In South Caicos, a fishing-dependent island of 1,500 people, most homes were damaged, the airport was under water, power will be out for weeks, and at least 20 boats were swept away despite being towed ashore for safety, Minister of Natural Resources Piper Hanchell said.

Tourism chairman Wayne Garland was text-messaging with two people in Grand Turk during the height of the storm. “They were literally in their bathroom because their roofs were gone,” he said. “Eventually they were rescued.”

With Ike forecast to sweep across Cuba and possibly hit Havana head-on, hundreds of thousands of Cubans yesterday evacuated to shelters or higher ground. To the north, residents of the Florida Keys fled up a narrow highway, fearful that the “extremely dangerous” hurricane could hit them tomorrow.

Meanwhile, at least 48 people died as Ike’s winds and rain swept Haiti yesterday, raising the nation’s death toll from four tropical storms in less than a month to 306. A Dominican man was crushed by a falling tree. It was too early to know of deaths on other islands where the most powerful winds were still blowing. But many more Haitian lives were threatened as Ike’s downpours topped flooding from Hanna, Gustav and Fay. Officials said they would have to open an overflowing dam, inundating more homes and possibly causing lasting damage to key farming areas.

Heavy rains also pelted the Dominican Republic, Haiti’s neighbour on the island of Hispaniola, where about 4,000 people were evacuated from northern coastal towns.

Ike’s centre hit The Bahamas’ Great Inagua island, where the roofs of its two shelters both sprung leaks under the 135 mph (217 kph) winds. As the storm passed, people inside peeked through windows at toppled trees and houses stripped of their roofs.

“It’s nasty. I can’t remember getting hit like this,” reserve police officer Henry Nixon said from inside a shelter holding about 85 people.

At 8:00 pm EDT (0000 GMT), Ike had weakened slightly to a Category 3 hurricane with top winds of 120 mph (195 kph). It was about 30 miles off Cuba’s northern coast, moving westward at 14 mph (22 kph).

The US National Hurricane Center predicted Ike’s eye would make landfall early today and could hit Havana, the capital of two million people with many vulnerable old buildings, by tonight.

An informal tally of figures being released sporadically by individual provinces indicated that more than 600,000 people had been evacuated in eastern Cuba by yesterday evening.